St. Petersburg

Ah, old Russian royalty - the excess and beauty was breathtaking.  Shortly after arriving in St. Petersburg we were off to the Peterhof Palace, which was the summer home of Peter the Great.  Apparently Peter was a bit of a prankster and had trick fountains around the grounds - fountains that look like statues and benches that suddenly spray water on the guest.  Here are two of the trick fountains - because the grounds were busy it was pretty easy to understand their tricks.

So many fountains! There are actually 150 fountains on the grounds.

Julia was feeling a little grumpy about not being carried.  As she loves pictures of herself, it didn't take long to turn this frown upside-down. 

What is more classic Russia than matryoshka dolls?  We had the opportunity to try and paint our own matryoshka dolls.  We had varying levels of success in painting, but everyone had fun.

I started as Jonah's paint partner, but I wasn't very good, so Elena, the artist in training, took over and Jonah ended up with a much nicer end product because of it.

Simon has a surprising artistic bend and with Julia's direction they ended up with a nice looking replica.

The middles 

The kids goofing off - trying to lift a pillar of Saint Issac's cathedral.

Peter the Great's winter palace which has been converted to the Hermitage museum which has over 3 million exhibits.  They say that it would take 10 years to see all of the exhibits.

In the Hermitage there is a Knight room.  At this point in our trip, Jonah was so tired that he slept through the whole Hermitage.  

Bolshoi St. Petersburg State Circus - this was perhaps the highlight of our St Petersburg adventure.

St. Petersburg was our longest port visit, which gave us more opportunity to explore.  It was an interesting city to visit and the touch communist Russia was still there to see.